OK/NOTOK
2025 · 13m · UK
Directed by Pardeep Sahota
Genres: comedy, romance, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic
A speculative romance following Loretta, a working-class British Asian woman navigating intimacy with an AI in a commodified future interrupted by algorithmic advertising.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A locked-single-shot speculative romance fusing Mike Leigh social realism with near-future satire, using algorithmic intrusion as a formal metaphor for modern disconnection.
Locked-single-shot near-future Mike Leigh with unskippable emotional ads — that's a genuinely peculiar formal blend, and the British Asian working-class lead specificity matters. Worth thirteen minutes.
The 'sci-fi Mike Leigh' positioning is a genuinely interesting collision — working-class British social realism plus speculative satire, locked into a single shot. If it lives up to the framing it's something we haven't quite seen; the Black Mirror gravitational pull is the trap to avoid.